The affair led to Clinton's being impeached by the House of Representatives in 1999. The Senate acquitted him and Clinton completed his second term in 2001.

Lewinsky dropped from sight after the scandal. She got a master's degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics and has lived in Los Angeles, New York and Portland, Oregon.

"I turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn't feel like the right thing to do," she said.

Lewinsky said she was strongly tempted to kill herself several times during the investigations and in one or two periods after.

Her name resurfaced in US political discourse in February, when former first lady and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton was quoted as calling her "a narcissistic loony toon" in an article based on the papers of a Clinton friend.